KUALA LUMPUR - Over 200 women are ready to sit as board members of public-listed companies, but the doors seem to remain shut.
"It is not that we don't have qualified people. It's just that the vacancies are not immediate," Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim said at the Women Directors' Training Programme Initiative 2014 here yesterday.
Seventy-four top-level women in management attended the event at Sasana Kijang, Bank Negara, here.
Rohani said the problem in placing these qualified candidates hindered the ministry's target of having 30 per cent women in decision-making positions in the corporate sector, as announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in 2011.Rohani added that the percentage of women on boards increased from 7.7 per cent in 2012 to 8.6 per cent last year.
"We are working hard towards achieving the quota (of 30 per cent) by 2016."
Sisters In Islam programme manager Suri Kempe said the slow progress was because the policy did not make it mandatory for companies to appoint women into boardroom positions.